


Althaea Officinalis

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Beds, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Introspection, Like Lying on a Marshmallow, Longing, Love, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunions, Sharing a Bed, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It’s your bed, right?</i>
</p><p>Steve nods, agrees: <i>Like lying on a marshmallow</i>. But that's not quite true. </p><p>It was never about the <i>bed</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Althaea Officinalis

**Author's Note:**

> Another plot-bunny that wouldn't go away—fun fact, it was originally called _Marshmallow_ and it was on my to-do list basically as "Write 'Marshmallow' and get it the fuck out of your HEAD."
> 
> All the thanks to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking it over <333

It’s not his bed.

It’s not that he lied, exactly: not explicitly, and that helps. That helps him to feel not-so-guilty about that first exchange with a man he counts as family, now; but when Sam had called him back— _It’s your bed, right?_ —and he’d agreed it was too soft, agreed that it had too much give, too much fluff, too much comfort that wasn’t a goddamned _comfort_ , well: that had been true, yes.

But that hadn’t been the problem. The problem that kept him up at night, the problem that drove him from under the comforter, from out between the sheets before dawn every morning wasn’t the way he sank into the mattress, the way he felt suffocated, cradled by something light and warm and static and lifeless and _wrong_ —

The problem, in truth, had never been with the _bed_.

And Steve doesn’t know what to make of the fact that he only notices, only recognizes that in the here, in the now: Steve doesn’t know what it says about him that he’d never stopped, never _allowed_ himself to stop and parse the meaning behind it, the way he’d reach out and feel the fabric of the linens, the way he’d close his eyes and memorize the way the thread count slid against his palm; the way he’d burn hot beneath the covers and feel faint with it, like a punishment, for the hours where rest would elude him, the way he’d strip bare and stretch atop a fully-made bed with military precision, hospital corners, pulled tight until it almost feels right, except the moments will stretch and he sinks back into the softness, the material that shapes to his frame underneath and he doesn’t deserve it, he hasn’t earned it: he’s still at war.

His core temperature’s fucking astronomical, these days, but above the blankets like this: he freezes.

It’s mostly inside his mind, he knows. He doesn’t care.

But more than that; the sharper shame, the deeper ache: even at war—with his body, with a continent, with his own half-cocked, whole-given heart—even at war, Steve’d never known the bite of stone, the unforgiving splay of dirt, the hardness, the cold; he’d never had to suffer that and maybe he should have, maybe he should have had to know those things without respite, without relief, but he hadn’t, he’d never needed to because even before his body could hold it’s own heat, he’d known warmth; even when the couch cushions were worn and you could feel the floor beneath them, he’d had the give of flesh as counterpoint; even when there were bunched trousers and rucksacks and the soft give of mud to cradle his head, he’d never had to settle: there was a chest, there was a heartbeat that welcomed him, that cradled him, that molded to his body and gave him comfort, made him safe.

There was no need for a bed, not really. Not when there was _Bucky_.

He wonders, sometimes, how they kept people from guessing, from saying anything; he thinks, most times, that blind eyes were turned. When Steve would indulge the impulse, the urge to forget waking in this new place, this new time, in the months, the years after the ice: he tried, very hard, to remember what it meant to sleep alone, to rest his head in silence and say his prayers outside the cadence of Bucky’s breaths.

But he can’t.

His momma knew Bucky was his everything; Bucky’s mother smiled soft at them, but tight somehow, like she was scared, or sad, and Steve thinks he understands—thinks it was more than the fear of what it meant for Bucky to tie himself to a failing body, to a _male_ body; thinks maybe it had something to do with tying himself too damned tight, something to do with caring, with loving that hard.

Steve thinks maybe she was right, to be scared, but danger was where he lived, where _they_ lived. That was their safe haven. That was their soft hand.

That was comfort: Steve’s tripping pulse and the worried furrow in Bucky’s brow and their hands clasped tight against one chest or another; Steve’s larger frame made small, maybe pliant when Bucky’s trembling body wrapped around him, thin for the time on that table, but strong because Steve made him strong, because Steve was made strong for Bucky pressed against him, and the Commandos never questioned the way they bunked, the way they huddled for warmth: the way it was always Bucky next to him; the way they fit without even trying.

They’d never _had_ to try.

So it wasn’t the bed, not really—the marshmallow he can’t sleep on, in the now, wasn’t the culprit.

Steve stares at the other side of the bed, in the now, and knows, suddenly—in the blood of him, all the way down to the bones: he knows the thing he’d been avoiding, been denying, been trying to hide in the dark; the buried layer of why he couldn’t sleep, because to sleep like this, in this, _without_ , would be to waken the devil, would be to invite memories that hurt too _hard_ when his defenses were lowered, when rest was given reign and his mind was free to wander—his heart was free to want. He stares at the sheets he’d memorized beneath his fingertips, studies their wrinkles as he blinks, as his pulse takes wing, pumps hard, and his eyes sting in the pitch black of the room as he stares, because he knows now what he’s always known, but the words come to his mind in a way he’d never allowed, before: in a way he’d never have survived, not then.

But it makes sense, now, in a way it hadn’t, couldn’t: the give of the bed fit him specifically, without knowing him; perfectly, without wrapping around his soul.

The bed made to encompass him, to comfort him, but there’d only ever been one place he’d known that comfort. There’d only ever been one way to wrap around him and make him feel like he fit.

The bed was warm, tried to make _him_ warm—but it didn’t radiate heat: it didn’t resonate, didn’t pulse to the heart with a promise, with a need reciprocated like the breaths that danced through strands of hair, held close.

Steve stares at the other side of the bed, studies the wrinkles in the sheets, the dip in the mattress, the way the other side of the bed isn’t seen, isn’t far—isn’t the other side of anything, save the better pieces of himself.

Bucky’s body sinks into the mattress, because that’s what the mattress does. Bucky’s body wraps around Steve’s own like it should, like it’s always done, like it was meant for this, for _him_ , and maybe Steve can believe that, now: maybe after everything, after life and death and making and unmaking and remaking and breathing again after so much, so _long_ and ending here, with Bucky’s arms around him, with Bucky’s heat Steve’s own, with Bucky’s heart beneath his cheek and Bucky’s hand in his hair, the steel like safety and the flesh like home—maybe Steve can believe that Bucky was made to fit around him, to hold the heart of him, to keep all that Steve is and to cradle him, to give him comfort, to offer release, to shape himself to Steve, and Steve to Bucky, so that they make one another. So that they move and breathe and _live_ in sync, in perfect time.

Steve studies the wrinkles in the sheets, on the far side of them, where Bucky’s body ends; Steve smiles because there is no space between where they press against each other, no place for wrinkles where they come together and hold.

Steve smiles, and his eyes slide closed; Steve sleeps, and he knows.

It was never about the _bed_.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who's curious: [Althaea Officinalis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis) is the plant known as the common marshmallow. Don't sleep on it, though ;)
> 
>  _Do_ , however, come babble with me on [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com/), though, if you're so inclined :)


End file.
